


A Favor

by platypi_in_ties



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Trans Female Character, Weddings, all the tropes to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 18:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17064752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platypi_in_ties/pseuds/platypi_in_ties
Summary: “You love your cousin, yeah? And us being there all week will make her happy?”“I already missed her engagement party and her bridal shower and who knows what other secret wedding rituals they don’t tell you about. And the family can be…” He made a face. “It’s always easier with allies.”“And being there for her all week will make you happy, yeah?”Enjolras looked up at him, surprised by the question. “Yeah,” he mumbled finally. “Yeah, it would.”Grantaire smiled. “Then screw it. Sunday to Sunday, I’m your decoy boy toy. Lord knows how soon I’ll come to regret it.”~It's his cousin's wedding and he can't let her down. Even if that means pretending Grantaire is his boyfriend for the whole wedding week.





	A Favor

Enjolras stared down at the purple invitation, repulsed by everything from the lace paper cut outs to the frilly font. 

Please Join Us For The Wedding Of

Marguerite Enjolras and Jerome Deschamps

Next month. Little Margot was getting married in a month. He shook his head in disbelief as he scanned the invitation. He had last seen Margot at her twenty seventh birthday party, but she was perpetually six years old in his mind, the cousin he worshipped like an older sister. They’d built forts together, climbed trees together, come out together… And now she was getting married.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been told. He got her call the day that she got engaged, and had met Jerome at Margot’s birthday party. He seemed nice enough, for an accountant. But still. With an invitation in his hand, it all seemed much more real.

His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the RSVP card. Julien Enjolras Plus One. Margot had taken the liberty of already filling in the number of guests attending—two. Enjolras had a feeling that this was wishful thinking on her part.

Where was he supposed to find a date? He had no time to go meet someone. He could always bring his roommate… Combeferre and Margot had always gotten along well, ever since Enjolras had first met Combeferre in high school.

His phone began vibrating in his pocket and he sighed, setting down the invitation to answer without checking who was calling.

“Hello?”

“Jules!”

Enjolras grimaced at the childhood nickname. Try as he might, he could never get Margot to call him Enjolras like everyone else. “Hey, Margot. I just got your invitation. 

“Next month!” she said brightly. “You can make it, right?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he assured with a fond smile, already crossing to his desk calendar to mark it down in red ink.

“You’d better not. Listen, I wanted to ask you something… You met Jerome, right? And you liked him, remember?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes at the warning tone in her voice. “What happens to me if I say no?”

“Great,” Margot said firmly, ignoring him. “I don’t know how well you got to know him but he doesn’t really… have many people coming to the wedding…”

Enjolras frowned and leaned against his desk. “Why not?”

“Small family… And…” Enjolras got the feeling that she was choosing her words carefully. “Some of them aren’t exactly… happy… about him marrying me.”

Enjolras’ anger flared. “Those-”

Margot talked over him impatiently. “Look, Jules, I didn’t call for a rant. Jerome and I both knew this might happen, we were prepared for it. Next Pride march, I’ll let you get as political as you want, but I don’t need that drama at my wedding.”

Enjolras pressed his lips together, fuming but silent. “So he doesn’t have many guests coming,” he prompted flatly.

“No, he doesn’t,” she sighed. “Which is why I’m calling. We wanted to know if you’d be his groomsmen.”

Enjolras blinked. “One of his—”

“I wanted you to be my Best Man of Honor, of course, but I’ve already got Eloise and two bridesmaids. It seemed wrong to have just him and his best man standing there while I have a small army. And he liked you when you met… Please, Jules?”

Enjolras sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’d never been good at saying no to her. ”What exactly does this entail?”

Margot squealed on the other side of the phone. Enjolras grimaced. “I’m taking that as a yes,” she informed him. “It’s easy, really. You already missed the engagement party—”

“I had an exam!”

“And my bridal shower—”

 “One of my clients had a court date! And I _did_ send a gift.”

 “Yes, the monogrammed towels were very nice, please thank Combeferre for me.”

 “ _What_ ? _I_ picked those—”

 “So really you just have to make sure you guys are here for the bachelor party, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and the wedding.”

 Enjolras paused. “You guys?” he repeated in confusion.

 Margot answered as if he were stupid. “You and your boyfriend. He’s invited. Marius wants him as a groomsman too. We need another groomsman anyway to make it even. We would have put his name on the invite too but _someone_ has been very tight lipped about him. I can’t believe you never told me you were seeing someone.”

 Enjolras blinked, thinking fast. He didn’t have a boyfriend. He hadn’t had a boyfriend in years. Where had Margot gotten the idea that—

 Oh no.

 “Where’d you, um. How’d you hear about him?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.

 “From your mother, you asshole. My baby cousin finally gets a serious boyfriend and I have to hear about it from his mother? I can’t believe you”

 Enjolras opened his mouth frantically to correct her, but she pressed on.

 "I’m just so happy for you… I was starting to worry. You haven’t been on a single date since… what? Your freshman year of college?”

“I went on a date junior year too,” he grumbled self-consciously.

 “A single date three years ago,” she scoffed. “And your last boyfriend was junior year of high school?”

 “Are you done reminding me of my pathetic love life?”

 “Not so pathetic anymore though, is it? It’s been… Six months, right? I think that’s what your mom said. I can’t wait to meet him. Is he hot? Of course he’s hot, that was a stupid question. Is he a law student too? How’d you meet him? Why didn’t you tell me about him earlier? Were you hiding him from me? Are you ashamed of me, Julien?”

 “Breathe, Margot, please. You’ll meet him at the wedding,” he assured her, thinking wildly.

 “Before the wedding! You need to be back home at least a week before, so you can help us prepare.”

 Enjolras sighed and turned back to his calendar to fix the date. “A week before, right,” he mumbled. “Tell Jerome I’ll— tell him _we’ll_ be there,” he corrected. “We’d be honored to be his groomsmen.”

 “I love you so much, thank you. It means so much to me, Jules, you don’t even—”

 "Don’t thank me. You knew I was going to say yes before you even called me.”

 “...Maybe.”

 Enjolras grinned.

 “Look, I’ve got to go,” Margot said. “I called you while I was driving home, just pulled up to the driveway. I’ll tell Jerome you said yes. I can’t wait!”

 Enjolras grinned. “Me neither. I’ll see you then, Marg.”

 “Don’t call me that.”

 “Don’t call me Jules.”

 “No deal. Bye!”

 Enjolras laughed and hung up the phone, staring down at the Call Ended screen.

 He was so fucked.

* * *

“You told Margot you had a boyfriend?”

 Enjolras groaned and buried his head in his hands. “Technically, I told my mother.”

 “Yes, but why?”

 Enjolras peered at Combeferre through his fingers. Combeferre stood on the other side of the counter, brown fingers wrapped around his mug of chai, a highly unimpressed look on his face.

 “She kept trying to set me up. She used to call twice a week just to tell me about the nephew of some friend from book club or whatever. I couldn’t take it anymore so I… told her I was seeing someone.”

 “Seeing who?”

 “I didn’t get specific.”

 Combeferre smirked. “And you didn’t tell Margot the truth because…?”

 “She just sounded so happy, I couldn’t disappoint her like that.”

 “I’m sure she would have understood,” Combeferre said, raising a skeptical brow. “If you’d told her that it was to get your mother off your back—”

 “Yes, well, I panicked,” Enjolras snapped. “I panicked and told her we’d be Jerome’s groomsmen because his family is too transphobic to support them.”

 “If they’re that bad, Margot and her fiance are probably glad that they won’t be coming. Imagine a whole wedding full of fifty Great Uncle Gerards.”

 Enjolras shuddered at the thought. One of his great uncles was bad enough, the last thing the world needed was fifty of him.

 “QED.”

 Enjolras rolled his eyes, staring miserably at the cracked counter. “Will you come?”

 “What? To be your fake boyfriend? If you bring me home as your secret boyfriend the entire family will murder you, then ask why you haven’t made an honest man of me yet.”

 He had a point. If Margot thought Enjolras had been dating Combeferre without telling her, there would be hell to pay and a new wedding to plan for, whether he liked it or not.

 “And if I marry you, Courf can’t. Margot would finish killing me just for Courfeyrac to take a turn.”

 “My hero,” Combeferre said dryly.

 “And Margot knows Courf too… What am I going to do? Jehan is going home for the beginning of summer, Joly and Bossuet are going to visit Musichetta’s family,” Enjolras listed helplessly. “Marius is Marius—no one would ever buy that. Feuilly doesn’t have the time to take a week off of work, Bahorel’s an awful liar… That just leaves…”

 “No.”

 “He’s my only option, Ferre. Unless you want me to go on Craigslist.”

 “I’d start with Grindr, actually,” he countered, his hazel eyes sparkling mischievously behind his thick glasses. “And Tinder before Craigslist. Are you really thinking of asking Grantaire?”

 “Who else can I ask? I know Grantaire, I know he won’t murder me in my sleep. I don’t have that guarantee with Craigslist.”

 “Unless you start bickering again. He could claim it was a crime of passion. How do you plan to pass as the poster children for young love when you can’t have a five minute conversation without jumping down each other’s throats?”

 “Grantaire and I can have a conversation,” Enjolras huffed.

 Combeferre raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Right.”

 “I’m asking him.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

Something in Combeferre’s voice made him look up. “What?”

“Asking Grantaire. To be your fake boyfriend.”

Enjolras frowned. “Why would that be unwise? He can always say no.”

Combeferre sighed, watching as he swirled the tea in his cup. “You know he won’t, though.”

* * *

Staring at the back of Grantaire’s head, Enjolras knew nothing of the sort.

 Enjolras had been distracted all throughout the meeting, a clear disadvantage when he was supposed to be leading it. He was—as Courfeyrac liked to call him—the Unofficial Official Leader of Les Amis de l’ABC, an activist group that he and Combeferre had started in their freshman year of undergrad. It had grown with them from a student club to a respected community organization, and while others had come and gone, a steady group of regulars had formed over the years, becoming Enjolras’ closest friends along the way. These were the people still surrounding him, those who stayed behind at the Musain for drinks after the official meeting had finished in the back room of the bar.

 Combeferre shot him a look from across the room. Courfeyrac, leaning heavily against Combeferre, stuck out his tongue. The moment he had heard that Enjolras was in need of a fake boyfriend and hadn’t even thought to ask him, he’d declared it an irredeemable act of betrayal. The fact that he had been sitting on his boyfriend’s lap at the time apparently did nothing to excuse Enjolras’ crimes.

  _You know he won’t, though._

 What had Combeferre meant by that? Grantaire had surely never had a problem saying no to Enjolras before. Ever since Grantaire had stomped into his first meeting four years ago, dragged in by his roommates, he had made a habit of sitting in the back with a bottle of wine and criticizing every word out of Enjolras’ mouth.

 After the disaster that had been Grantaire’s first ABC meeting, Enjolras hadn’t expected to see him ever again. But Grantaire had never once conformed to Enjolras’ expectations. He’d shown up the next week, and the week after that, and had yet to miss a meeting since. For the longest time, Enjolras had wondered why. Why come to their meetings just to mock everything they did? But again and again, Grantaire had proved him wrong.

 It turned out, as Enjolras discovered almost six months after the first meeting, that Grantaire was not actually an asshole. He just had an infuriating tendency to play devil’s advocate that made Enjolras want to punch him in the face. Enjolras had gotten close a few times. While he wasted no time telling Enjolras that each rally and speech was absolutely worthless, he showed up at every single one. He designed their flyers and posters, organized rides and first aid, and was always in the right place at the right time to help when things got ugly. A year after Grantaire’s first meeting, Enjolras developed a grudging respect for him. After two years, they could even be in the same room together without arguing—provided their friends provided a nice buffer between them. Now… Enjolras didn’t really know where they stood.

 They were friends, surely. After four years of meetings and rallies, group movie nights, outings to bars and bowling alleys and whatever else Courfeyrac could talk them all into, they must be friends. They just… Had never really sat down and had a conversation before.

 Still. They were friends. Enjolras needed help. Help was a thing that friends did for each other. He wouldn’t have felt out of sorts asking anyone else in the room for help.

 So why did this feel so different?

 The sound of Grantaire’s throaty laugh shook Enjolras from his thoughts.

 Joly seemed to be regaling him with a very animated story about his latest experience with a resident at the senior center. “And then—” He broke off, leaning against Grantaire’s side with the force of his giggles. “And then— He took my cane and—” He waved his arms around madly. They both broke into laughter.

 “Grantaire?”

 The laughter died in Grantaire’s throat. He turned quickly toward Enjolras, just in time for Enjolras to see his smile slip, replaced by a sardonic smirk. “Apollo?”

 It was a mark of the progress they had made that the name only brought him the smallest flicker of irritation. More than one hour long argument had begun thanks to that name in the past.

 Enjolras set his jaw. They were friends. Friends could ask friends for help. “Can I speak with you?”

 Grantaire blinked. “Am I being punished?” he asked with a mischievous grin. “Don’t tell me you’re going to spank me.”

 Enjolras’ eyes narrowed. “Sorry to disappoint. I have a favor to ask you.”

 “A favor?” Grantaire exchanged looks with Joly, but got to his feet.

 Enjolras hesitated, then gestured for Grantaire to follow him outside.

 “Finally gonna knife me in the back alley?” Grantaire asked, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned against the brick wall.

 Enjolras grinned a little in spite of himself. “Not tonight,” he promised. He shifted his weight, trying to decide how to best to begin.

 “Your favor?” Grantaire prompted.

“Yes.” Enjolras cleared his throat. “My cousin Margot is getting married in a few weeks.”

 Grantaire frowned. “Congratulations?”

 “And apparently no one is coming for her fiancé. Or, basically no one. Margot didn’t exactly specify. Point is, his family is a bunch of transphobic assholes who don’t support them and Margot asked me to be one of Jerome’s groomsmen because otherwise he’ll have no one.”

 Grantaire shifted, still frowning. “Sucks for them,” he said sympathetically. “Still don’t see where I come in, though.”

 “I… Please don’t laugh… Jerome needs two groomsmen, to go with Margot’s two bridesmaids. And… And Margot asked me to bring my boyfriend because I was an absolute _idiot_ and I told my mother I was seeing someone to get her off my back but I guess she told Margot and now she’s expecting me to bring someone and I can’t let her down, not on her wedding, not with everything else that’s going on, and—”

“Breathe, Apollo.”

 Enjolras frowned but took a breath as instructed, grounding himself in Grantaire’s puzzled green eyes. “And I told her I’d bring someone. My boyfriend. Because I’m an idiot.” He dragged a hand over his face. “And I can’t bring Courf or Ferre because my family knows them, and everyone else is out of town or too busy, and—”

 “And you’re asking me to be your fake boyfriend,” Grantaire finished for him, his voice flat. “Because you can’t let down your cousin and I’m your last resort.”

 Enjolras felt his cheeks burn. “No! Not a last resort, I just… I didn’t think… I wouldn’t inconvenience you like this if I had any other option, is what I mean. Not that you can’t say no. I mean I _hope_ you’ll say yes because my Plan B is Craigslist and I don’t want to be murdered in my sleep, but of course your consent is important and I know this is a lot to ask, so if you don’t want—”

 “I’ll do it.”

 Enjolras blinked. “You’ll… You’ll do it?”

 Grantaire sighed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Yeah. I must be fucking crazy but I’ll do it. Not like I had anything better to do. When is it?” 

Enjolras swallowed. No matter what Combeferre had said, he hadn’t been expecting Grantaire to accept so quickly. “Two weeks. We… We’d have to be there about week, she said. She _said_ she wanted us there Sunday to Sunday—she’s got things planned all week, we’ve got a big family for a bunch of WASPS—but we could cut it shorter if we needed to. I’ll give her some excuse, she’d understand. She said they’re having a night out for the whole wedding party and some of their friends, rather than a separate bachelor party and all that. That’s Wednesday, so we’d need to get there Wednesday morning at the latest,” he said, thinking out loud. “Friday is the rehearsal and dinner, and Saturday is the wedding. We could leave Saturday night if we wanted, but...”

 “Oh no, if I’m going, I’m sticking around for the champagne at the reception,” Grantaire assured him. “Sunday to Sunday is fine.”

 “Are you sure? I know it’s a lot to ask, and it’ll be a lot of time with my extended family and they’re the type that’s accepting but not _accepting_ so it’s bound to be awkward and if you don’t want to stay the whole time—”

 Grantaire held up a hand. “You love your cousin, yeah?”

 Enjolras sighed. “She’s like my sister. We did everything together, growing up.”

 “And us being there all week will make her happy, yeah?”

 “Yeah.” Enjolras pinched the bridge of his nose. “I already missed her engagement party and her bridal shower and who knows what other secret wedding rituals they don’t tell you about. And my family can be…” He made a face. “It’s always easier with allies.”

 “And being there for her all week will make _you_ happy, yeah?”

 Enjolras looked up at him, surprised by the question. He licked his lips, Combeferre’s words ringing in his ears. “Yeah,” he mumbled finally. “Yeah, it would.”

 Grantaire smiled. “Then fuck it. Sunday to Sunday, I’m your decoy boy toy. Lord knows how soon I’ll come to regret it.”

“You will? Oh God, thank you, Grantaire, you have no idea how much this means to me. If there’s any way I can make it up to you—”

 “Lets just say you owe me a favor,” Grantaire smirked.

 Enjolras considered, then held his hand out in agreement. “A favor.”

 Grantaire scoffed at his hand but shook it anyway.

 “We can go over the details later,” Enjolras said, glancing back toward the door to the cafe. “I’ve got to get back to tell Ferre something before he leaves and Courf throws his phone across the room again. But thank you, Grantaire, really. So much,” he called, already on his way back into the cafe.

 The door closed just in time for Enjolras to catch Grantaire’s response.

 “Don’t mention it, snugglebuns.”

 


End file.
